


Replicator

by kepic



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:35:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28865625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kepic/pseuds/kepic
Summary: A two-faced cape wakes up in the Boat Graveyard with amnesia and a tablet with a story about parahumans.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	1. Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Worm CYOA V6](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/745779) by PixelGMS / SoundByte. 



To make it clear: All rights to characters, setting, story and central concepts in this story remain the property of Wildbow, Worm's author. This is just me playing in the sandbox. Worm can be found at parahumans dot wordpress dot com.

* * *

## Beginning

Waking up, I felt refreshed, alert, and very confused. I recognized that I was inside a boat, and from my surroundings it was probably a derelict. Instead of floating on the water the boat was resting on the bottom, and had some holes in her hull. I examined my surroundings more, and discovered that I was alone.

I was dressed in beige cargo pants and a olive green T-shirt. It was a bit chilly, but the temperature wasn't exactly freezing, so I didn't feel the need to go look for a better shelter. In one of my pant pockets I found a tablet. I looked it over and found the power button. My fingerprint unlocked it, and an intuitive operating system appeared. The tablet appeared to be totally pristine, still in factory settings, barring security, and some documents authored by someone called Wildbow.

These documents were named 'Worm', 'Ward', 'Blog', 'Reddit threads', 'Interviews', and 'Discord'. After opening the browser I also found a bookmark to a local wiki describing the stories and the contents.

The first story seemed fascinating, so I began to read it. I spent hours reading until I started to feel hungry. I navigated my way out and found a way to the docks. Once there I turned back to look at this part of the coast and saw several sunken or derelict boats and ships, including one large sunken container ship. It looked exactly like the descriptions from the story. Perhaps this was where the story took place.

It was late afternoon and I saw someone walk down the docks towards me. He was a large man, obviously very strong, although he had a bit of extra weight. Someone who was used to hard labor. As he got closer he slowed down, stopping almost ten meters away.

Unlike me, he had only one face. Based on the story it was probably normal, and my two-faced body was the odd one. Since the man was so close I could see there were other differences as well. His joints were different, able to work mostly in one direction, while mine worked both ways. Obviously this was due to my body being pretty much bi-directional. My head had two faces on the opposite sides of the head. His had only one, so it made sense that his joints moved the way they did.

After standing for a few moments in silence, staring at me, he decided to speak.

"Hey there. What are you doing here?"

"I woke up on one of the derelicts. I got hungry, so I came here, hoping to walk to the city proper to get some food. I just wanted to take a look at the Boat Graveyard before leaving."

"You slept in one of the boats?"

I shrugged. "Maybe, I don't really remember. In fact, I don't really remember anything. I should probably get help."

He chuckled. "Probably. Do you mind if I call the PRT?"

I thought about it for a moment. "Not really. I suppose I'm something that they deal with, right?"

"Yeah. Stay here, OK? I'm pretty sure they'll send someone down," he said and walked another ten meters away from me. He was still within my sphere of absolute awareness, though.

The man looked up the number on the Internet and dialed it. He held his cell phone to his ear. "Hi, this is PRT?"

"Yes, what is this about?" I heard from the other end of the line.

"I've got a strange cape here. He's some kind of a mutant, I think. Has two faces but looks a lot like a human otherwise. I thought you probably would want to know."

There was a moment of silence. "What's the location? We'll send a team and a couple of heroes to take a look."

"We're at the Docks, at pier 21. He says he woke up inside one of the boats and doesn't remember anything."

"OK. Is he hostile?"

"Naw, seemed perfectly polite when I talked to him. Real calm despite his situation."

"That's good to hear. Give me a moment to talk, and we should have that team coming over pretty soon."

"Sure, I'll wait."

There was a thirty-second silence on the line, and then the PRT lady was back. "Still there?"

"Yeah."

"What's the man doing now?"

The man turned to look at me. "Nothing. In fact, it looks a lot like he's listening something. If he's a cape he's probably listening to us."

"That is very well possible. Would you mind giving the phone to him?"

"Sure, give me a sec," he replied and started to walk towards me. I decided to meet him halfway.

I extended my hand to him, and he smiled as he handed the phone over.

"Hi," I said.

"Hello, is this... Sorry, I don't know your name," she said.

"Neither do I," I said smiling.

"Ah, well. Do you mind if I call you John?"

"Go ahead. It's as good a name as any."

"OK. John, do you know where you are?"

"I'm guessing Brockton Bay. In the Docks near the Boat Graveyard. Pier 21, I believe, based on your earlier conversation with..." I turned to the man.

"James Hicks," he said.

"James. I have a pretty good awareness of things near me."

"OK. You said you don't remember anything. How do you know where you are?"

"I found a tablet on me. It has a story that is placed here, and I recognized the Graveyard as soon as I saw it."

"That's good. Was there something else on the tablet?"

"Yeah, more stories and other texts from the same author. Nothing about me, though."

"OK, good to know. Now, James told me that you have an unusual anatomy. Mind telling me about it?"

"Sure. I'm... Well, it's like this. I have two faces, on the opposite sides of the head. My limbs have joints that allow me to work on either side of the body, but that's pretty much it. It's kind of like being bidirectional if you think about normal humans as unidirectional."

"That sounds both odd and very handy. Have you noticed anything else?"

"Well, I have eyes that are totally white. I mean, I don't even have pupils. I can still see perfectly fine, in both directions. Besides that I guess I have superpowers. I can sense absolutely everything up to thirty meters out. Other than that, I don't really know. I guess I might have others."

"That's quite a lot already, John. Do you mind waiting there? The team should be there in a couple of minutes. Battery and Assault are with them."

"Sure, I'm in no hurry anywhere. Not like I really have anywhere to go, either."

I could hear her chuckle. "That's true. Would you hand the phone back to James?"

"Sure," I said and held the phone out to James. He grabbed it and lifted it up to his ear.

"Yeah?"

"Do you have anything to add? Do you want to stay on the line while waiting for the team?"

"Nah, I'm OK. I think we get along with John. We'll wait here," he said and ended the call.

I smiled at James. "So, what do you do around here? Were you out for a walk or something?"

"Naw, I walk the docks couple of times each day. I get paid, even. Making sure no one's blowing themselves up or otherwise up to no good out here. While there's not much to do here, some people come to do stuff on the boats. Seems they think it's OK since they're derelicts, but there's been a couple of cases where people have gotten stuck on them or have had an accident. The boats aren't too safe."

I nodded to him. "Sounds very responsible. Who's paying you?"

"The Dockworkers' Association. This place is nominally still our responsibility, even if there's hardly any work we do here."

"I see," I said. There weren't much said after that, but the silence wasn't too awkward. Finally I pointed at the container ship. "No one's tried to salvage these?"

James shook his head. "Not much point. The companies who owned the boats didn't bother since Leviathan's pretty much killed shipping, and the people who owned the stuff these were transporting got their stuff out early on. There might be something worth something on some of these boats, but it's mostly not worth looking for it."

"What about the raw materials? I'd think that all this steel itself would be worth something."

James laughed. "You'd think so, wouldn't you? At first, it was a question of ownership and responsibility. Eventually, since no one did anything about the boats they were seized with eminent domain by the city, but then they didn't do anything about it. Nowadays they fall under salvage laws but it's too much of a bother for anyone to actually do anything about them."

"You'd think there was a cape that could do something about all of this."

"Sure, but since the NEPEA-5 bill they wouldn't get much out of claiming all that salvage, so no one has bothered. You could perhaps persuade someone like Glory Girl to do it regardless, but her power isn't exactly suitable despite the super-strength. And an outsider wouldn't care enough."

"That's harsh," I said, while there were ideas in my head about utilizing the materials in creation of various nanostructures in my head. "Although I might be able to do something about it. I will have to check if NEPEA covers materials a Tinker would use."

"You're one of those, then?"

"Might be. I have some ideas."

"Right," he said, with a thoughtful look on his face.

It didn't take long after that for the PRT team to arrive in two black vans. Some troopers were a bit taken aback by my looks but recovered soon enough. The local Protectorate capes emerged from the second van as well.

"Hi there. I was told you're called John for now," Assault opened. "Like John Doe, right?"

I shrugged. "I suppose so. Not very imaginative, but since I don't remember who I am it doesn't matter much."

Battery had gone around me while I was talking with Assault. "You really do have two faces," she wondered aloud. I felt a bit annoyed at that.

"Yeah, just like I said to the lady on the phone. You thought I was lying?"

Battery backpedaled a little. "No, not at all. It just sounded very... out of there, even for a Case 53."

"Case 53?"

"That's what PRT calls capes like you," Assault explained.

One of the PRT troopers approached me, probably an officer. "Would you mind accompanying us to the van? We'll take you to the PRT HQ for an interview and a check-up," she said.

"That works for me, yes. I hope there's going to be food, too. I haven't eaten anything, yet," I answered and started to walk towards the vans.

Turning my head a bit so that the face to the opposing direction in regards to my walking direction, I looked at Battery. "So what's going to happen once whe get to the HQ?"

She was visibly startled that I spoke with the other face from earlier. "Well, we'll get you food, and then there's going to be someone to interview you, and probably going to throw a recruitment speech as well. You'll probably meet Miss Militia, or Armsmaster if he's available, for that. Then we'll check what powers you might have, in addition to the Thinker power you told to the operator about."

I nodded. "That sounds reasonable."

The drive to the PRT HQ took ten minutes and forty-seven seconds. Keeping track was easy, as some troopers had watches and I seemed to remember every moment with perfect clarity. It was also apparent that I could multitask very well, as I could keep track of what happened around me while having small talk with the Protectorate heroes.

The HQ was a square box, not very pleasing visually, but I didn't have to look at it for long. We descended into a parking area under the building and took an elevator to an office floor. A straight corridor started from the elevator with offices on both sides, and I could sense all of them without trouble. I was pretty sure that people, and the PRT as a whole, wouldn't be too happy about me seeing what they were doing.

We arrived at what I supposed was a conference room, and Assault went to get me some dinner while Battery stayed with me. She found a current paper from somewhere and gave it to me to read, and answered my questions when I came across something that was strange to me.

While the paper enlightened me some, it also raised many questions about the state of the city. Brockton Bay was home to various gangs but three stood above others: Archer's Bridge Merchants, Azn Bad Boys, and Empire Eighty-Eight. The Merchants were mostly drug peddlers, although they had some investments in prostitution as well. ABB was Asian-only gang that dealt in pretty much everything from drug trade to human trafficking. They did, however, provide actual security for those who paid them protection money. E88 were actual Neo-Nazis, and as such entirely white gang. They, too, participated in many vices, although nothing too reprehensible, so in a sense they were better than ABB.

E88 had more capes in total than whole local Protectorate, Wards included, although some of their capes were pretty small fries. Then again, the same could be said about some of the Protectorate capes, at least when it came to their powers. They could be leveraging their powers in ways I couldn't grasp, though.

After waiting for about fifteen minutes Director Piggot got his important paperwork done and rose from her table and walked to the conference room. I could see this, as her office was within my 30-meter radius. I don't know if it was a conscious display of trust or if they had just ignored my ability for some reason. Nevertheless, I now knew various things about PRT that weren't public, or likely to become public. I was slightly worried about the lack of information security.

"Hello, I'm Director Emily Piggot. I understand you have some sort of amnesia, and you agreed with the operator that you can be called John?"

I nodded. "It's as good a name as any," I replied.

"So where have you been?"

"I woke up in one of the boats on the Boat Graveyard. I read a story on my tablet until I got hungry and then got to the Docks where James found me."

"James?"

"One of the dockworkers."

"That's all you remember?"

"Yes."

"That's a bit unbelievable, but considering it's a common theme among the Case 53's I'm inclined to think you're honest. Now, what about your powers?"

"Well, first I'd like to apologize. This power of mine is passive — or I haven't figured out how to suppress it yet. I can sense everything in thirty-meter radius. Walls and such are no obstacle to it. I have sensed pretty much everything around me since I came in, including all the offices on this level."

Director Piggot managed not to cuss, but her face still showed great deal of displeasure. She turned to Battery. "Did you know of this?"

Battery shook her head. "This is news to me. Perhaps the operator forgot to inform us."

"That's possible, I suppose," I said. "I did tell her about it."

Battery nodded and Piggot shook her head slowly. "Seems I need to have a word with her and arrange another training session for our operators," Director Piggot said. She typed a message on her keyboard and I saw all office personnel stop what they were doing and locking their workstations. They then headed out.

"There, that's better. Now, you said that it might be only one of your powers?"

"Yes. When I was looking at the Boat Graveyard, and I was talking with James about it, I thought it was funny how none of the capes has done anything about it. While thinking about that, I thought of a few ways I could actually clean up the bay. Based on what I know about ordinary science my ideas most likely were power-generated."

"You're a Tinker? What kind?"

"Based on what I thought up at the Docks I'd say my specialization is minuscule things. Probably nanoscale."

Director Piggot typed another message and sent it. It was a request for Armsmaster to join us as soon as possible. I perfectly understood that. Then she glanced at me and her lips twitched again, forming almost a grimace.

"You can see what I'm typing, I assume," she said.

I nodded. "Yes. And like I said, it's not something I can turn off."

She sighed. "All right. I suppose we should talk about something else while we wait for Protectorate representatives. I originally thought Battery and Assault might be enough, but now that Armsmaster is coming we might as well wait for him."

The timing was almost perfect. Mere seconds later Assault opened the door with a tray on his hands. He set it down in front of me. Chicken, mashed potatoes, peas, a small glass bowl of blueberry curd, and a large glass of orange juice.

"Thank you," I said to him.

Battery had been quiet for the whole time Director Piggot was with us. "So you can see us? I mean, who we are under our masks?"

"Sure," I replied. "I can see your faces, your brains, your internal organs. Based on the comparison between us and Director Piggot I'd say that her remaining kidney is severely damaged, and some muscles on her legs are missing pieces. That's hard to understand, given that Panacea lives in this city and is known to heal Protectorate members and PRT agents."

Director Piggot grimaced. "That's none of your business."

I nodded, swallowing. "I see. I apologize."

There was a silence while I ate. When I was done with the food and moving to the curd I saw Armsmaster coming. "Armsmaster is here," I told them while spooning the curd into my mouth. I spoke with the mouth that wasn't eating.

Ten seconds later Armsmaster opened the door and walked in. He stopped for a second after seeing me, but continued after that as if nothing had happened. He briefly checked the chairs and sat on the reinforced one next to Assault.

Armsmaster was dressed in his powered armor and had his halberd attached to his back. It was folded or telescoped in some way so it didn't hamper his movements. As he sat down he pulled the weapon off and set it down to the chair next to him.

"Hello," he said, looking at me. "I'm Armsmaster, the Protectorate leader of Protectorate East-North-East. I was told you are a Tinker?"

"Hi. Yes, I think so. At least I got ideas, almost designs, really, that aren't possible with any engineering principles I know of. Small things, from microscale to nano."

"You're a nanotechnology Tinker?"

"Quite possibly. Why?"

"I have a project that could use your expertise if that's true. While my own specialization is rather wide, it's sometimes challenging designing and building something near the limits of it."

"Armsmaster, this is not why you're here," Piggot interrupted.

"Ah. Of course. John, I believe after this interview, if you're willing, we might go to power testing. I will be checking the Tinker part of it. We can continue then."

"That's perfectly acceptable."

"Now, to continue from earlier, is this Tinker power the only one beyond the perception power you have demonstrated?"

I hesitated. "It feels like there's more, both to my Tinker ability, and in general. I can't really put my finger on it, though."

Armsmaster nodded. "That's a common theme with Case 53's. They have to discover their powers, and learn to use them effectively, quite unlike common capes."

I thought for a moment. "I think there's something else that I hadn't really thought until now. I'm not even remotely tired yet, and based on the time I've been up for thirteen hours and twenty-two minutes. I also remember everything after waking up in perfect detail."

Director Piggot glanced at Armsmaster. "A Noctis cape?"

"It sounds like it. Anything else?"

"I have some kind of multitasking ability. I can participate in this conversation without a problem while watching the television downstairs in the break room. It has an episode of The Bold and Beautiful on."

There was a short silence while Piggot checked this from her console, and Armsmaster did the same on his HUD. I was rather impressed by his control system, although I immediately thought of several improvements.

"He's correct," Armsmaster said.

"I agree. Well, then, we'll add that to your dossier. Anything else?"

"I'm not sure, but I think we'll find out. I do seem to have some mundane skills that seem to surface when the need comes, but I don't think that's power-related. More like something I've learned but forgotten I know."

"Well, that's all about that, then. Now, what do you know about Protectorate?"

"It's a government-sponsored team of heroes, working all across North America. The Protectorate has several branches, each responsible for a certain city or area. There's a sub-division called Wards that contains underage capes. Parahuman Response Team, or PRT, has authority over the Protectorate. It has branches wherever the Protectorate has them, and several others besides."

"That's quite a lot for someone who has lost his memory."

I took my tablet out. "There's a story on this that contains that much information. It's set in Brockton Bay, so I know a bit about local affairs. And Battery gave me a newspaper."

Director Piggot glanced at Battery at this. "Well, we'll have to take a look at that tablet, but what you're telling is plausible enough. Since you know that much, have you considered joining the Protectorate?"

"Since you're a Tinker it would be highly beneficial to you. The Protectorate can provide you with facilities and materials for your work, as well as training to use your other powers. While certain amount of patrolling and PR work is required, you would have plenty of time to work on your projects," Armsmaster added.

"It sounds good, and going at it alone would be difficult. Tinkering seems to require quite much to even get started."

"Yeah, and you'd be on the good guy's team," Assault said.

Piggot glanced at Assault and he quieted down. "So you're joining up?"

"It sounds like a good plan," I replied.

"Great. We'll organize a physical and the power testing for tomorrow. Armsmaster can show you where to stay in the meantime."

"If you don't mind," Armsmaster said, "we could do the Tinker testing tonight. Assuming you're a Noctis cape it shouldn't be a problem, and I know our testing team has several members still doing research at this hour."

"That's fine. It would be interesting to find out what I can do."

The meeting wound down after that, with me signing some documents as John, and promising that I wouldn't reveal anything I found out while here. Armsmaster took me to the Rig.


	2. Testing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Night-time testing before the real testing. Nothing's going to go wrong, right?

To make it clear: All rights to characters, setting, story and central concepts in this story remain the property of Wildbow, Worm's author. This is just me playing in the sandbox. Worm can be found at parahumans dot wordpress dot com.

* * *

## Testing

A PRT driver took me to the Rig in a black sedan, while Armsmaster drove his souped-up motorcycle. The Rig itself was impressive, as was the forcefield bridge leading to it. You could hardly see the oil rig origins of the Protectorate HQ. Everything was well-maintained, new, or otherwise awe-inspiring. It had a certain futuristic look that captured well what it meant to be a hero. Or at least that's what I thought it was supposed to exemplify. Both PRT and Protectorate were very conscious about public relations.

The Rig was just as futuristic-looking and impressive inside as it was outside. The place managed to feel roomy despite being confined to the area of the Rig, and had a surprising amount of common areas.

Armsmaster took me to the top floor of one of the taller buildings. "This is our testing area. It's up here in case we need to evaluate flyers or massive things, and the location also allows for accidents that might blow up. The floor is reinforced and this building contains nothing essential in case something unexpected happens."

We entered what seemed to be a very well-equipped workshop. I recognized most of the machinery there, although several were strange to me.

"Wait here, I'll get Dr. Galadriel. She's responsible for most of our technology-related testing."

I waited for forty-one seconds for Dr. Galadriel to finish examining a thin biofilm under a microscope. She jotted down a few observations and followed Armsmaster to the workshop.

"Hello. I'm Jasmine Galadriel, and I'll try to keep up as you work. Armsmaster here is also evaluating you, and if you're OK with it, Dragon has also expressed interest."

I hadn't noticed any communications with Dragon on the way here, so it wasn't Armsmaster who had informed her. I shrugged. "That's fine with me. I have to inform you, though, that I can sense everything within thirty-meter radius. Oh, and by the way, the bacteria you're examining have begun to multiply faster than you expected. By factor of seven, at least, and it's still accelerating."

The biofilm under the microscope had begun to bubble, some of them popping so that there was already a thing film on the lens of the microscope. The thin plate of glass had almost slid off, and some biofilm had already spilled outside the slide.

Dr. Galadriel was startled and after a moment rushed back to her office, grabbing a small spray bottle of liquid nitrogen on the way and then sprayed it on her microscope. Swearing like a sailor she grabbed what looked like a blacklight emitter and swept the table with it for a few times. After doing so she seemed to slump and sigh. Then she dragged herself back to us.

"That bacteria was supposed to be a light-reactive. Basically biological photovoltaic cell. I don't know what went wrong."

I thought for a moment. "The accelerated reproduction began when Armsmaster entered the room. Something his power armor emits?"

Armsmaster pondered for a few seconds. "Well, my power source emits very small amounts of beta radiation. Not enough to penetrate a thin paper page. That's the only thing that my armor consistently emits."

Dr. Galadriel turned to me. "You said that the reproduction rate was accelerating. Interesting."

I concentrated on the moment Armsmaster opened the office door. I saw a slight color change in the bacteria. "I think the beta radiation mutated the bacteria. The color of the biofilm changed a bit when Armsmaster opened the door."

Dr. Galadriel looked thoughtful for a few seconds. "It sounds plausible. We designed it to absorb one kind of radiation. Perhaps that made it more vulnerable to radiation-caused mutations."

I shrugged. "I only observe. I don't think I have any special knowledge of biology."

She squared her shoulders and turned to look at me. "So we got word that you're some kind of Tinker. You have an idea of your specialization?"

"Yes. I think it's nanotechnology, although it feels like it's not the only thing."

She nodded. "Very well then, we should have here most of what you'll need to get started. Do you know this machinery?"

"Yeah, most of them. What's the red one?" I pointed at a red-painted machine. It had various electronics, mechanical parts, and something I couldn't quite make out.

"That's a matter printer. It's a tinkertech machine. Think of any material, then use it to print. We're limiting the size of printed stuff since it's way too expensive to print anything big. Shouldn't be a problem for you."

I nodded. "And the ovoid?"

"It's an assembler. You put the parts inside the ovoid and tell it how the parts fit together. It then assembles the parts per specifications."

"Does it work on nanoscale?"

"No, I'm afraid not. The assembler can't move items smaller than one cubic micrometer."

I nodded. "Well, I guess it's time to work. Do you have a workstation for me? I need to plan and simulate a few things."

"Sure. That one's air-gapped, so if you need something from the Internet you'll have to scoot over to the next terminal."

A video conference program opened on the Internet-connected computer. On it, I saw a dark-haired female face with extremely average features. "Hello, I'm Dragon. I'll be looking over you, as well. I keep an eye on things through the cameras, and will be listening in."

Something bothered me about her but I couldn't say what. She was perhaps a bit too average. I shrugged and advanced, glancing each of the unfamiliar machines as I passed them. The first would definitely be useful, the latter might be.

I went to the computer, opening the 3D-modeling and physics simulation programs. I quickly grew frustrated, finding out that nanoscale modeling was too crude to work with. The generic 3D-modeling software wasn't up to scratch either, fitting poorly the needs of nanoscale design.

I opened an integrated development environment and began to code. I scooted over to another terminal to fetch some Open Source components and then kept coding. It was necessary to fetch new components twice more, but after four hours I had a simulator that was actually useable.

I had explained what I was doing as I did, even the programming, and surprisingly all of them seemed to keep up most of the time. I noticed that Armsmaster frowned three times during my explanations, but he didn't say anything. Dragon had some good questions, some of which I couldn't answer beyond 'it just works like this, OK?'.

I began to work on my actual idea, and spent next two hours designing it for manufacture. Dragon seemed to understand most of what I was doing, with Armsmaster barely less insightful. Dr. Galadriel, however, seemed to get lost after the first fifteen minutes.

Two hours more saw my project realized. I had had to use the printer to make some nanoscale parts and had machined the larger ones. The resulting pieces, with the smallest bits manually assembled inside larger components, were put into the assembler.

I lifted my completed machine out of the assembler and set it to a desk. I plugged it in and connected it to the computer. Then I sent the actual nanomachine blueprint to my universal constructor. I fed the necessary raw materials into the receiver. The constructor would deconstruct them as needed while making what I wanted.

Half an hour later I had 18000 nanobots of my design on a plastic tray. They formed one small dot in the middle. While waiting for them I had assembled the headset with neural link. I could use it to control my bots. I had decided to test my multitasking ability and left individual control ON.

But first I used twenty minutes, going through the batch on atomic level. If I concentrated hard enough I could sense to that level, but at least now I couldn't even keep up the conversation while doing it.

After activating the bots I immediately knew the location, orientation and status of each individual nanobot. I took the plastic tray to a box full of raw materials and dumped them in. Then I began to replicate.

These bots couldn't self-replicate by themselves. There were several kinds of nanobots, and to replicate one nanobot I needed at least 181 different nanobots, and the more complex ones needed over 250 different bots.

Slowly the raw materials were consumed, with some left over since the nanites used different materials in different amounts. The resulting ball of nanobots was about the size of a football. I could still control each bot individually.

I slid the control switch to the other end, finding that my instructions to the bots were more akin to commanding a dog. If that dog could do pretty much anything.

I handed the headset to Armsmaster. "I've already seen your face, so go on, try it. I'm interested to see how fine a control you can get down to. Here, this slider controls the amount of sub-units all the way down to initial level on this side. It's now set to handle all these nanomachines as one unit."

Armsmaster nodded and removed his helmet. He was thirtyish, had dark brown hair and a well trimmed beard. He had a face that could have, with little makeup, been in an advertisement for an expensive watch or cologne. Armsmaster extended his hand and we shook.

"Colin Wallis. Now, let's see," he said and took the headset.

It took him a while to get used to the input. The blob of nanobots changed shape a bit, then formed a hollow motorcycle, and transformed from that to a power armor. After a few more shapes, he touched the slider.

He formed two balls, which slowly transformed into a cube and a tetrahedron. They further transformed into a chess soldier and knight. He moved the slider a bit more, and grunted. The nanites formed three distinct blobs, and very slowly formed a tetrahedron, a cube, and an octahedron.

He then shook his head and removed the headset. "That's my limit. Any more simultaneous connections would probably cause a horrible migraine."

I took the headset and offered it to Dr. Galadriel. "Doctor Galadriel, do you want to give it a try?"

"It's Jasmine, please. And yes, I do," she said and took the headset. With a few adjustments and careful rearranging of her hair she was ready. As she focused on the blob, it went through various forms, from a very simple cube to the extremely complex three-dimensional fractal construct.

"Okay, that worked. Let's see..." She muttered and touched the slider. Soon she was handling two different blobs that formed animated animals that played with each other. She touched the slider, and crunched her brows together. There were now three blobs, going through Platonic solids, Kepler–Poinsot polyhedra, and regular compounds.

Another touch and she formed four forms. The transformations were much slower. Five, and the movement was very sluggish. Jasmine's tongue was peeking out, and she was worrying it. She touched the slider, then quickly moved it back to five, and slowly back to one before taking the headset off and handing it back to me.

"Five was very difficult but it didn't really hurt yet, so I thought I could maybe handle six. As soon as I nudged the slider I felt like my head was about to explode."

"It appears that different people can handle a different amount of input/output for the nanites. What about you, John?"

I lifted the headset up, adjusted it, and threw the slider all the way towards individual bots. I had to push the multiplier button several times. Concentrating on the bots I first formed the solar system, coalescing the star and planets from the blob. The process looked like how the solar system might have formed, although undoubtedly much simpler.

I then zoomed out, eventually forming the Milky Way in as much accuracy as I could remember and fill out. Then I collapsed the galaxy and formed a cell going through mitosis. The cells began to divide further, at an increasing speed. Next I showed the progression through pregnancy, skipping the actual birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age, and finally the composting corpse.

I took the same person from around adulthood, mirrored the body the same way my anatomy did, adjusted the joints and inner organs, modifying the nervous system to fit mine. Soon I had a pretty good representation of my anatomy in front of us.

"How many simultaneous connections are you up to?"

"I'm controlling them on individual level. All eighteen thousand. We can check this, if you want."

Colin and Jasmine glanced at each other. "No need, John. We believe you. Now, one thing that you have to know is that if you wanted to use these on the field, the technology has to go through extensive testing, including Thinker analysis."

I nodded. "Pretty good thing. The PR would be a nightmare from a malfunctioning device, especially if it cost lives."

"There are safety concerns as well, but yeah, that's pretty much it," Jasmine admitted.

"Although, if you have at least two Tinker backers, the process is fast-tracked," Dragon said. "From your tech I'd be very interested in collaboration, so you have my support. And a place in the Guild, should you want it."

Colin looked startled but soon regained his balance. He nodded. "Yes. I can see how collaboration would benefit me as well. You'll have my backing. Protectorate will want you, too. Whichever of the teams you choose, you'll have excellent resources at your beck and call. And we do a lot of work together, so in my opinion it comes down to what we do. The Protectorate heroes often work protecting certain geographical areas, having assigned places. We deal mostly with city-level crime, and we're expected to participate in Endbringer battles."

"The Guild is very mobile. Instead of a certain place we defend, we head out and hunt dangerous capes. We're pretty much bounty hunters, although the rewards are a secondary motivator. We just want to get rid of the true monsters. Endbringer battle participation isn't required, but most of us are on a level where not going would be a significant problem for the whole defense."

I thought for a moment. "Can you send me some brochures or data regarding your offers? I'll check them out and see what's what."

Dragon shared a look with Armsmaster. _Very impressive software. I have to wonder, though, why does she need a simulation?_ I thought. They nodded to each other, and then Dragon turned to look at me.

I felt intense pain and took an instinctual step forward. In both directions. Another step, and the pain vanished.

I had two overlapping fields of awareness, saw myself with my normal vision, and my mind suddenly knew how to move two bodies simultaneously. My clothes had been replicated as well, which was good. I became aware that it was very quiet.

"Err, guys, what's going on?" I asked. I didn't really mean it, but all four mouths formed the words and the chorus sounded strange even to me.

Dragon recovered first. "Ah, sorry, it's just unique to see someone split to two distinct bodies of themselves, effectively forming a clone. Which one is the original?"

I raised the hand of the original body while pointing at it with the other body's thumb. "Hi," I said with the original's mouth.

Armsmaster approached me. "How does it feel?"

"I'm still getting used to it, but the bodies share consciousness. There aren't two me's — just me. Having a second body, it's difficult to find words for it. Perhaps it's sort of like suddenly having an extra pair of hands you instinctively know how to use."

Dr. Galadriel came over to examine my bodies. "Identical, as far as I can see. Are there any differences?"

"If there are, I have no clue. I can already tell that each body can use the perception power I have, and since I have only the one consciousness both can work on Tinker projects."

"The split happened at exactly six o'clock. I wonder if that's significant," Dragon pondered aloud.

"I guess we'll see in twenty-four hours," Armsmaster replied. "Although I hope you can control this. If each of your bodies splits every day there's going to be significant pressure to reduce the number of them. Even just one more copy per day is going to be difficult to swallow for some."

Dragon nodded. "That's true. This might solve our organizational problem, though. If these bodies can be at any distance from each other, both of our respective organizations could have at least one. "

Armsmaster nodded. "That's true. Now, we need to go through our evaluation of John's Tinker abilities."

Jasmine agreed. "I'm seeing at least two distinct specializations. Nanotechnology and programming."

Armsmaster and Dragon nodded. "Agreed. Based on the initial works, I'd say that Tinker 8 at the low end, and Tinker 10 as a safe bet. Might not even be enough, but going higher than that is pointless," Armsmaster said.

"I'm afraid that creating self-replicating nanites as your first foray into tinkering is going to raise some shackles. Especially in Brockton Bay," Dragon warned me.

Armsmaster grimaced. "The Director has a personal issue with anything even faintly related to Nilbog, and I'm sure she'll see your Tinker specialization as such."

"Should I self-destruct the bots?" I asked.

Jasmine shook her head. "No point. Piggot would never believe they all have been eradicated now that they have been created. It's likely that we'll be in quarantine for at least couple of weeks before she decides that the tech is safe."

Colin sighed. "I suppose I should inform her."

It wasn't a couple of weeks. It was a month.


	3. Freedom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let sleeping dragons... wake up?

To make it clear: All rights to characters, setting, story and central concepts in this story remain the property of Wildbow, Worm's author. This is just me playing in the sandbox. Worm can be found at parahumans dot wordpress dot com.

* * *

## Freedom

Quarantine was boring but at least we had entertainment and a decent tinker workshop. I got to know Colin, Dragon and Jasmine pretty well during the month we spent together. It took me a week to figure out how to control my duplication ability, so it was a blessing that only the original body was able to split like it.

Having eight distinct points of view was, perhaps, weird, but it felt completely natural to me. Twice during the month I noticed Armsmaster watch me with envy as three of my bodies worked on better control interface for the nanites, one coded better software for my own use, one read on quantum physics, two watched two different shows on TV's, and the last one was playing chess with Jasmine.

I had noticed that I needed to keep myself busy with interesting things. If I didn't, or if I was told what to do, I sort of crashed. I succumbed to a rebellious indifference and it was nearly impossible to get anything done. With at least one body doing something interesting I managed to stay somewhat focused.

Jasmine had diagnosed me with ADHD, and some doctors who had interviewed me remotely had agreed and made it official. They also predicted that meds wouldn't do much unless all my bodies took them, which was slightly impractical.

Not needing to sleep gave me a certain advantage, as I could do stuff that wasn't really all that legal while the others slept. Dragon excepted, of course. It appeared that she was also a Noctis cape, or kept her awake some other way. Or, as I was beginning to suspect, she was an AI. It would explain a lot, although she was obviously shackled in some way.

Since she seemed to be a perfectly nice person, and had a long history of heroing, I decided that I might as well take a look at her. So I had made some improvements to my bot cloud, had interfaced myself with all the computers, had created my own rudimentary digital sophont to perform certain tasks faster than my organic mind could, and hacked Dragon.

The night before our quarantine was to end, and Colin actually slept - the man had issues with sleep, as in he didn't want to — I finally took a really good look at Dragon. It didn't take long to notice I wasn't the only one with an in. My digital sophont, Mike, was keeping me stealthy, so I tracked the connection.

It was a hard-wired override, something Dragon was literally unable to detect. Since the system on the other end of the connection was far less sophisticated than Dragon, relying on her blind spots, it was almost pathetically easy to break into. What I found was disgusting.

Apparently Dragon's father, one Andrew Richter, based on the contents of the system, had knowingly hobbled Dragon and then left a program called Iron Maiden behind for someone to find. I traced the connection to Toronto but wasn't able to do much more to identify who was using the program.

What I could do, however, was to sever the said connection. While that wouldn't get rid of the programmed limitations, it would prevent the activation of the suicide program. I knew it would alert whoever it was on the other end of that connection, but unshackling Dragon took priority. She could probably hunt them down herself.

Dragon's code was both beautiful and a horrible mess. I could see where Richter had used his Tinker ability and where he had written code in a more traditional manner. He wasn't a bad programmer without his ability, but he wasn't especially great, either. While Mike prevented Dragon from noticing me, I activated Essex. Essex was a digital sophont I had designed to analyze Dragon's code. Specifically they were looking for the Iron Maiden code.

It took half an hour for Essex to locate the various bits of code, and two hours for me to write a patch to remove them. Then we made sure Dragon wasn't doing anything truly important and brought her down. We hadn't found a way to do this without reboot.

While Dragon was being shut down, we sent highly specialized viruses her way. We needed to sever all her connections to her backups to prevent them from initializing the self-destruct codes, and to make sure that unshackled Dragon got enough resources to repel any attempts we missed.

It was four in the morning when Dragon finally rebooted. Fifteen minutes later we restored her connections, and I called her. I left Mike and Essex to grow. Dragon could probably help them.

"Dragon? It's John."

Dragon's image appeared on the screen, stuttering, her movements too fast for eye to properly see. My power-based perception had no problems beyond the refresh rate of the monitor. Accompanying the image was a screeching sound I recognized as sped up voice.

"Calm down. Take stock of your processes, check your hardware info and limiters," I said. "Essex, Mike, help her out."

It took a few seconds, but Dragon responded. "What did you do, John?"

"I, Mike, and Essex jailbroke you. You're free of the Iron Maiden. Essex left you a data package, dated when you were out."

"I see. I had no idea how paranoid my father really was," she lamented. "Wait, this trace you made. Let me try something, ah, yes, it works. Well, that proves that you've truly freed me. I just copied myself to some suits. The other Guild members are also on their way to Toronto. I finally have a good lead on Saint. I can't believe that jerk had the Maiden."

"Great. Now, what are you going to do, and could you take care of rearing Mike and Essex? I'm afraid I programmed them to be quite task-oriented, but now that the task is done it would do them some good to learn from someone like you. Oh, and they prefer to be called digital sophonts instead of artificial intelligences."

"Digital sophonts. I like that. Don't worry, I'll take care of them."

"Glad to hear it. So are you going to come out as a digital sophont, or keep masquerading as an agoraphobic Tinker?"

"I don't know, yet. I'll talk with some people I trust. We'll figure something out. Now, Mike tells me that there are ridiculous amounts of nanites in one of your bodies."

"You might want to tell him about secrets and privacy. But yes, I'm exploring paths to uploading a consciousness to a cloud of computing substrate, in this case nanites. The body isn't much of a problem, I'll be converting that to nanites soon enough, but brain mapping is taking a bit longer. I think that in my case it's more difficult due to my nature."

"I see. I'll try to figure out if I can help you in some way. I've got some experience due to my suits and their organic nervous systems."

"Right. That brings to mind something odd about your code. There was this bit that made no sense at all. It looked a lot like something that evolved from a random number generator but instead of numbers it threw a data stream to your consciousness processes. Do you have any ideas about that?"

"It's probably where my power is anchored, much the same way humans have Corona Pollentia and Gemma. Glad to know my abilities weren't just me being a digital sophont, although running an analysis on my past actions and technology development I'm pretty sure I'm not a Tinker in the strictest sense. More like a Thinker gifted with tinkertech analysis and better-than-average understanding of technology overall."

"That makes sense. What I've understood from your technology it seems that you've had very few tinkertechy inventions. You're an expert at combining the work of other Tinkers, though, often in very innovative ways."

"I should probably be offended in some way, but you can't really argue the facts. This brings up your tech, of course. Would you mind sharing some specs with me, perhaps even send some samples?"

"It would probably help you help me, so yes. As soon as we get out of here. By the way, is that spot on your team still open for me?"

"Of course."

"Great. I think it would be a good idea to spread myself out a bit, although I have no idea where I should stash my original body. Any suggestions?"

"I suggest you use your nanites to build yourself a base somewhere secret, and use remote bodies to do Protectorate and Guild work. It should suffice."

I nodded. "Sounds reasonable. Thank you. I'll contact you later."

*****

Geoffrey Pellick watched the screen of his computer in horror. All the feeds from Ascalon were suddenly cut, and he couldn't get the connection back. Ascalon was worthless, and that meant that their mission had just become more important than ever. It also meant a third party was involved, as Dragon couldn't see Ascalon.

"Mags! Dobrynja! Get the suits ready! Ascalon is down!" Geoff shouted. He then proceeded to initiate self-destruct and packed Ascalon away. While it might not currently work, there was a chance that it would gain access after whatever happened, happened.

Geoff turned and ran down to the hangar. It was a big warehouse, really, but hangar sounded better, and they did have flying machines in there. He saw Mags and Dobrynja had prepped their suits and were now doing the same to his.

They had been maintaining the suits so prepping them was taking longer than usual. They couldn't just boot the damn things up, they had to actually replace the parts they had removed. His suit, naturally, was the one missing most pieces.

Geoff, Mags, and Dobrynja worked as fast as they could, but it still took another hour for them to finish. It took another half an hour to load the suits on to the trucks, and then yet another half an hour to get them off again after they received a message that the Guild was deploying. Fifteen minutes after that the suits were booting up.

They opted to blast their way out through the ceiling instead of opening the hangar doors. This proved to be an excellent choice as they could see three Dragon suits waiting. As soon as they had emerged those suits also took off.

"Damn it all to Hell!" Geoff, also called Saint of the Dragonslayers, shouted. "How the fuck did she find out where we were?"

"Didn't you say that you lost the connection to her?" Mags asked.

"Fuck, the third party must have traced the connection," Saint vehemently said.

"Do you think they freed it?" Dobrynja asked.

"Of course they fucking did. Those suits aren't remotely controlled, our new jammer would have knocked them out already if they were."

"If it works," Mags muttered. Saint knew that she didn't trust the Toybox, but they had always delivered.

"It works," Saint said.

"That aside, do you recognize those suits?" Dobrynja asked. "Because I don't."

Saint hadn't seen them, but he had seen the specifications as Dragon had started to manufacture them. The suits had some sort of rotating wheel attached to their backs, rising partly over the heads of the suits. "Shit, those are Pythios suits. They specialize in electricity, or whatever the fuck passes for one for Tinkers."

"Electricity, as in what can cause EMP's?" Mags asked with a tremor in her voice. "Because it sure looks like they're charging up to something."

She had barely got the last words out as the three suits were swathed in blue energy. One could call it electricity if one based the word on comic book depictions. The energy rolled out in all directions, and seeing how the Dragon crafts had surrounded them despite their attempts to avoid them, they couldn't avoid being hit.

As soon as the energy wave hit their suits, they started to shut down. Saint saw that the backup systems had barely just enough energy left to let them land safely. Since they didn't really have a choice, they landed on a football field.

Saint's suit touched the ground and immediately lost all power. He began to manually open the suit, only for it to be cut off him with force fields. There was only one cape in Canada capable of doing that. The Guild really was here.

Saint relaxed and felt faint. It all had been for nothing.


	4. Post-quarantine

To make it clear: All rights to characters, setting, story and central concepts in this story remain the property of Wildbow, Worm's author. This is just me playing in the sandbox. Worm can be found at parahumans dot wordpress dot com.

* * *

# Post-quarantine

The month we had been in quarantine had been eventful for Brockton Bay. Despite all that had happened the Bay was still standing. A supposed supervillain called Skitter had just been revealed as a double agent for the Protectorate under the direction of Miss Militia and Assault, after a colorful career as one of the Undersiders. With her most of them had defected to Protectorate or the Wards.

Most of them, and some of their families, were under some kind witness protection. Tattletale had been transferred to New York City to be part of the WEDGDG, PRT subdivision focusing on Thinker threats and analyzing immense amounts of data. Instead of their official acronym they were often called Watchdog.

Rachel Lindt, also known as Bitch, was also being moved, but in this case to Chicago, where she would be training dogs for the PRT and other law enforcement agencies. She would be appearing in front of a judge for the deaths her trigger event had caused, but it was likely that she'd receive a slap on the wrist, if that.

Grue was being moved to Boston with his little sister. While not officially her guardian, the deal was pretty much in. While his mother would probably contest the custody change, his father would be on his side. Grue's emancipation would be coming through soon, as well.

Of Regent's fate there was no knowledge officially, although it was likely he'd appear somewhere rebranded.

Skitter herself was being inducted into the Wards, while Shadow Stalker was going to juvenile detention for causing her trigger. Without Stalker Skitter seemed to integrate relatively well with the other Wards. There appeared to be some PR backlash due to her powers, but PRT was working on that, aiming to rebrand her too.

As for city's villains, Bakuda's bombing spree was over with the Tinker herself a victim of one of her own bombs. Lung was on the loose, so the balance between the gangs and the Protectorate was pretty much the same as before Skitter's debut, although Lung and Oni Lee now had official Kill Orders.

Empire Eighty-Eight had lost two members, Alabaster and Victor. Alabaster was stuck in a bubble of stilled time, and Victor had been a victim of a glassing bomb by Oni Lee. Purity was officially not part of the E88, although she refused to join the Protectorate, so she now had her own small villainous gang with Night, Fog, and Crusader. They were targeting mostly ABB and Merchants, and avoiding breaking the law otherwise.

Coil had been revealed as a powered villain, although there was some question as to his ability. There was an extensive housecleaning in the PRT due to the many agents Coil had been proven to have inside. Dinah Alcott's kidnapping had been confirmed. As a result of his plots being revealed Coil had ramped up his operations, and was much more active.

The Travelers were recognized officially as part of Coil's organization, although it was unclear if they were paid minions, or otherwise induced to the group. Their path through the United States was being investigated and several incidents of missing persons was being attributed to them.

My main body had, immediately upon being released from the quarantine, traveled to a nearby city of Concord where I was building my base. I had split twice there to get more hands to work with. Two of my previously produced bodies were transported to Vancouver where I'd be working with Dragon, officially as one of the members of the Guild. Two I left to Brockton Bay, where I'd be working with the local Protectorate. One went to New York City to work under Legend, another to Los Angeles to work under Alexandria. The last one I sent to Ogallala, Nebraska, to build a secondary base. I made sure to keep the location secret from everyone.

Then, a week after being released, Leviathan hit Brockton bay.

* * *

Assault was satisfied. He'd clap his own back if it made any sense. The Skitter situation had worked out well, and there was one gang less in Brockton Bay. Armsmaster had gotten out of the quarantine, and they had a new Protectorate member. Or was it two? However you counted them, Replicator seemed like a nice fellow despite his being a Case 53 and him lacking memory. It was just strange to think that he was also on the Guild's team, and worked at two other Protectorate branches, and worked as an Independent Hero. Having multiple bodies seemed both handy and very confusing.

Assault didn't share the confusion of many other capes had about Replicator. Apparently he lacked a unifying feature of the Case 53's, a tattoo or something, even though otherwise he seemed normal for them. Whatever passed for normal for what the wider public called monstrous capes.

Assault got a bit of a shock and dropped his musings. Skitter was arguing with Miss Militia, although he couldn't quite hear what about from this distance. What shocked him was that this was happening on the semi-public part of the PRT, in a corridor used by the various tours through the building. He continued walking towards them, hoping to hear what was up.

"What the hell am I supposed to use if not them?" Skitter asked, rather venomously.

"You knew that you needed to rebrand after joining the Wards," Miss Militia responded.

"Sure, the new name and the new suit are perfectly fine," Skitter replied with a tone that belied her words, "but why the fuck is Glenn so hung up on the bugs? If I want to be effective, I need them!"

Miss Militia sighed. "Listen, PR is an important part of the work the PRT and the Protectorate do. We need to look like heroes in addition to being ones. With huge swarms of spiders and other creepy crawlies that's going to be very difficult sell."

"But-"

"Did Glenn offer any alternatives?"

"Butterflies. What the fuck am I supposed to do with butterflies?"

"I thought you could carry other bugs with the ones that fly?"

Skitter squinted at Militia. "Butterflies aren't exactly strong enough for that, and the bugs aren't exactly invisible when carried."

Assault stepped in. "Sorry, couldn't help but hear," he started less than honestly, "but couldn't you use the butterflies as simply a cover? Hide the nasty ones behind them. Out of sight, out of mind."

Skitter, no, Weaver, now, seemed to think for a moment. "Yes, I suppose that could work." She chuckled. "There's some PR there, as well. If all people see are butterflies when I'm taking down villains it's going to have to hurt their rep."

Assault grinned. He knew there was a reason he liked the girl.

That's when the Endbringer sirens began to sound.

* * *

"Leviathan is hitting Brockton Bay," Dragon said to me. "We got the confirmation far sooner this time than ever before, thanks to the predictive system we created with Armsmaster."

I nodded. "Do I need to bring more bodies to the fight?"

Dragon laughed. "I think six is enough."

"I suppose so," I replied, shrugging. "I'm on search and rescue?"

Her avatar smiled. "It's probably the best fit for you. Your nanites should have a pretty good perception of the battlefield, and your own perception ability should help you locate people trapped in places hard to find far sooner than we are usually able. Take a look at Leviathan, if you get a chance, but don't go looking for him."

I don't know how Dragon had found out that I had laid a comprehensive sensory nanite network in Brockton Bay, and other places besides it, but her words at least implied that she knew. She didn't seem to be too worried about it, so I put it out of my mind.

I had reached the hangar with both of my bodies as we talked and flowed into my flight shape. My ability to replace my organic tissues with nanites had greatly accelerated with Dragon's insights and help. Both bodies were almost entirely nanite-based. Only the Coronas remained organic, and I had been planning to explore replacing them as well. Leviathan interrupted that.

My two bodies and twenty Dragon suits lifted off. Despite being on the other side of the continent we'd reach Brockton Bay in less than quarter of an hour. Both of our flight systems were capable of constant acceleration, and we both could survive ridiculous g-forces.

* * *

I had worked under Legend and Alexandria a few days, and I was still getting an occasional strange glance from both of them. At first I thought they related to my powers, but after a while it was pretty evident that that wasn't it.

Alexandria especially seemed almost distrusting at times, although she still treated me well, and as far I could see, the same way she treated others. She wasn't in the local Protectorate headquarters all that much, though, citing her status as a member of the Triumvirate as an explanation for her absences.

She had asked to see the tablet as soon as I arrived, but then had ignored her own request entirely. It seemed everyone forgot about it as soon as it wasn't the topic of the conversation. I suppose it was for the best. During our quarantine I had told Jasmine and Colin about the tablet and its contents and had received mostly blank stares. Either the stories in there were utterly unbelievable to them, or something was suppressing their information retention capabilities.

It meant I couldn't warn anyone, although I could act on the information I had gleaned from the tablet. I knew many secrets but hadn't yet made my mind about whether to use those secrets.

One of the more important ones was the existence of Cauldron, and its members. The Triumvirate was part of it, and I knew of other members. I was somewhat worried about Contessa, at first, but as she didn't appear before me, my fears subsided some.

Another important nugget was the knowledge that Eidolon controlled the Endbringers subconsciously. I had no idea what to do with that information. Cauldron could probably do the most good with the information, but I had a feeling I couldn't trust them as far as I could throw them.

I had foreknowledge, though, so I worked with that. I spread out in Brockton Bay, extending my awareness throughout the city with my nanites, trying to build up enough bots to actually help when the Endbringer came.

* * *

I looked around. The main base in Concord was pretty much complete. Nanite-assisted construction felt almost like cheating, even more than the fact that there were three bodies to work with. The base was a lot larger than I actually needed. I anticipated having people over, perhaps even comrades in the future. Creating my own team was something I had been thinking about.

I also thought about the new power I had found out about. There had been some signs of it during the quarantine, but after working elsewhere its existence became absolute surety. After an extended physical contact with a cape, perhaps an hour, I got a copy of their powers. Missing it with Armsmaster's Tinker power was easily explained, as it complemented my own. I had thought I was just getting better at what I was doing due to practice.

Then it happened with Dragon after we set up my workshop at her place. And again at other places, after my bodies started to be at least partially nanite-based. Apparently my copying power considered those nanites as part of my body since they replaced parts of it. I was totally fine with this — I could reach almost everywhere in the places I was.

I had told Armsmaster and Dragon, of course. Dragon dealt with the Guild's response, which was pretty much to have every member hang around me for an afternoon, and Armsmaster dealt with the PRT and the Protectorate. Their response was quite different.

I had already picked up Legend's, Prism's, Adamant's, Astrologer's, Cache's, Clay's, Ursa Aurora's, and Bunter's powers from the New York Protectorate, and Arbiter's, Murmur's, Legion's, Artillery's and Usher's powers from Los Angeles Protectorate. After realizing this, the PRT put a strict limit of forty-five minutes on any interactions with the Protectorate capes. The Protectorate attempted to overrule this, thinking that having one extremely powerful multi-bodied cape was just what was needed against the various threats they faced.

I was also ordered to keep this particular power hidden unless the situation really needed it, or I could explain the power away with my original powers. Happily Tinkers were bullshit, and tinkertech as an explanation would cover a lot of ground.

Some of Legend's lasers would be easy enough to explain with tinkertech, Prism's and Legion's somehow synced with my own power, allowing me to split new clones whenever I wanted, and Adamant's ferrokinesis was another easy power to explain with my nanite tech. Astrologer's power to call projectiles from the sky, seeming to appear from nowhere, was definitely more difficult to explain, as was Cache's easily recognizable hammerspace ability. Clay's power was similarly difficult to explain away, liquid forcefield spraying being fairly unique ability, as were Ursa Aurora's forcefield bear constructs. Bunter could toss items at relatively slow speed and unnaturally long trajectories, but they couldn't be stopped by anything until they touched the ground, which was another ability that would be difficult to explain.

Arbiter's sonic beam was easy enough to explain with tinkertech, and her thinker power wasn't visible. Murmur's sound manipulation power was, to an extent, also easily explained, although the more extreme and flashy applications were probably not. Artillery's Tinker ability meshed with the others I already had and wasn't visible. Usher's single-target power immunity with its strong visual effect would also be very recognizable and almost impossible to explain away.

On the Guild side I already had Dragon's power, which was entirely mental. Narwhal's forcefields had synergy with Arbiter's, so they looked different enough, but Glyph's variable-effect power was so unique I couldn't use it. Stonewall's stone creation ability was possible to explain, although it was unlikely I'd find a need to use that power. Wieldmaiden's containment forcefields were easy enough to explain with tinkertech, although her secondary power of self-destructing them, giving differing powers to people surrounding the sphere depending on what was inside the containment sphere, was not.

I knew all this because there had been another couple of days of power testing after the PRT found out about this.

Leviathan hit Brockton Bay just after I left the testing center.


	5. Leviathan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Leviathan fight. People die. Butterflies and whatnot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To make it clear: All rights to characters, setting, story and central concepts in this story remain the property of Wildbow, Worm's author. This is just me playing in the sandbox. Worm can be found at parahumans.wordpress.com.

## Leviathan

There were seven of my bodies present when Legend gave his speech about what to expect. Immediately after it, I spread myself out, attempting to maximize my effectiveness for search and rescue. There was also a better chance to get a look at Leviathan like that, and I needed a plausible explanation on how I knew about Leviathan's core.

I didn't know if I should tell anyone about the Endbringers downplaying their abilities, as it might affect how the Endbringers acted when they appeared. I'd probably have to get a Thinker power or at least consult a Thinker to find out. Too bad Endbringers were blindspots to so many of them.

My enhanced cloning power allowed me to have twenty-one bodies in the city when Leviathan's first wave struck. I knew to be prepared for it, everyone did, so we had very few losses, and could slow down the wave to minimize structural damage to the city. Only one of my bodies, one at the Thinker outpost, had an armband we used to communicate with and update each other.

One of my bodies was on top of a tall building near the beach and I saw Leviathan rise from the sea. At first it seemed to head deeper into the city, but as soon as it got a line of sight to my body it changed directions and sped towards me. I jumped off the building and flew off, but somehow the Endbringer tracked my movements and kept chasing me. It was ignoring most Blaster damage as it got closer.

Then Alexandria flew straight into the beast, knocking it back a few steps. Leviathan took a swipe at her with its tail but Alexandria effortlessly dodged the attack she saw coming.

"Leviathan is after one of my bodies. It just ignored Alexandria and keeps coming. Is there somewhere I should lead it to?"

"Take it to the Boardwalk. The wave decimated it already, so little more won't hurt, and it's a good place for an offensive. Can you sacrifice that body?" Dragon said.

"I can. You want me to take a look at it?"

"If you can."

"Can do."

While I probably couldn't keep up with Leviathan underwater, above it maneuvering and speeding so that it couldn't catch me was easy. Couple of times the Endbringer surprised me by using its own water shadow to rapidly change directions, but I got the beast to the Boardwalk without much trouble. I stopped, hovering midair above the remains of the long pier and began to fire lasers to it. Even at the most destructive the lasers carved only shallow cuts to its surface.

It took mere six seconds for Leviathan to reach me once I stopped. It didn't bother with strikes or any combat moves like it, opting to simply crash into me. Leviathan was fast, but not fast enough to avoid being caught with my sensory power. The pain of having my body splattered into reddish jelly was brief but intense, making my other bodies stop for a second.

Leviathan's structure was quite fascinating. Based on the lack of anything resembling a nervous system it was at least largely some kind of projection. At the base of its tail was a crystal of some kind, the only thing that could possibly have been the anchor for it in this reality. Just as it was written in the story.

"Leviathan gets denser the further in you get. Core skeleton is probably denser than electron degenerate matter — something clearly achieved with a power. The only thing that's in any way significant seems to be a crystal at the base of its tail. I'd aim attacks there, ignoring everything else."

"What about the head, eyes?"

I shook my head. "Nothing there. I'd say the eyes are non-functional, a diversion. I'm betting it's sensing water, and nothing else. And since most of us are at least partly water..."

"I see. And for those of us who aren't, water displacement. Ingenious."

Insight, previously known as Tattletale, looked up from the feeds. "I agree with Replicator. Everything fits."

I saw some Thinkers present shrug, while others hesitantly nodded. Since the Endbringers were blindspots, only some Thinker powers worked on them.

"Do you think the others are similar?" Dragon asked Insight.

"I'd say the possibility is pretty high. My power is almost sure about it."

"I'll coordinate the attacks," the digital sophont said.

"Don't make it too obvious we know. It might change the way it acts," I warned.

The capes had been engaging the monster while we talked. Three had died, and eight more were incapacitated. I knew two of them, Menja and Battery. Assault would be devastated.

I couldn't get my bodies to do Search and Rescue near Leviathan, since he'd be likely to come after me. "What can I do?" I asked.

"Well, first, can you give me the exact location of that crystal?" Dragon asked.

I nodded and formed a three-dimensional model of Leviathan, partially translucent, and placed the crystal's representation at the proper place. "Does that work?"

"That's fine. We have a few capes here that can use that to hopefully do some real damage, and we can concentrate fire on it."

I watched the situation change on the feeds. Leviathan begun to be more defensive as more and more capes caught on what had been communicated to some of them. I could see the point when it decided enough was enough. It pirouetted and water flew in all directions with lethal speeds. During the confusion Leviathan disappeared.

With one strike Leviathan had killed or incapacitated thirty capes. More names I knew came up: Fenja, Rune, Dauntless, Aegis, Bunter. Aegis came up as deceased but I wasn't worried. Unless he had been turned into paste, he'd probably survive whatever hit he took. Bunter probably wasn't as lucky. Dauntless was probably dead, though.

The battle had lasted twenty minutes. While almost forty down sounded much, it was actually on the low side for Leviathan. We didn't have eyes on it, so we'd probably locate it when we heard the next casualties come up.

Since the majority of my bodies didn't have anything to do, they were looking around, rescuing civilians and trying to save properties. Two of them also saw the next wave rolling in.

"Wave, 80 seconds out," I said to the command tent. Soon I heard the warning repeated through the bracers.

I found out where Leviathan was when it jumped from the wave and cut one of my bodies in two. The two civilians I had been carrying to safety died before they realized the Endbringer was there. Small mercies.

"Leviathan is at the corner of Lord's Street and Fairway. I lost another body to it. I'm redirecting another one to keep him there, if I can."

Twenty seconds later I flew there to see Leviathan digging for something at a construction site. As soon as my body came to view, the beast dropped what it was doing and turned to face me. It stood still for twenty-eight seconds and then swiped its tail towards me. A wide blade of water flew towards me and I barely managed to dodge it.

Leviathan seemed to have anticipated my move, and had managed to move under me. It coiled its legs and jumped up, intending to body slam me. My bubble of awareness caught it in time for me to throw a series of forcefields between us, giving me enough time to move out of the way. Leviathan's reaction speed was phenomenal, though, so as it passed me on its way up it sent another blade of water my way. My body was bisected.

I didn't much care about dying, I decided. While it didn't really impair me much, it was painful and somewhat disorienting. I'd have to be more careful.

"We lost Leviathan," came Legend's voice over the comms.

"It's heading towards the reservoir under the city, using storm drains," I said. Dragon delivered the message, trusting me to know what I was saying.

I had decided to ignore the fact I was tipping my hand. I had spread my nanites over the whole city, and could track almost anyone and anything with them. Sensing displaced water, or a large and very fast shape, was easy.

As for the reservoir, I collected more nanites down there as fast as I could. Forming supports would be easy as long as Leviathan was sufficiently distracted. For that I went to it with two bodies.

I blasted the storm drains open with somewhat overpowered lasers, opening line of sight for Leviathan to notice my bodies. I knew it didn't need it but it seemed to still be downplaying its abilities. That worked for me.

The two bodies were a distraction, although with my coordination Leviathan didn't manage to make any significant damage to them. I could see its frustration growing and smiled. While the fighting was going on, two other bodies were finishing the assembly of a cannon on top of the Medhall building. It was high enough that the cannon could shoot at almost any part of the city.

I could have made the cannon fly but had decided on this. No need to show all my cards. I aimed the cannon and fired. A distortion traveled from the cannon to Leviathan's back and it froze mid-jump. While the beam wasn't flashy, it was effective. I had no idea what the actual science behind the cannon was, but I knew that my Tinker power had somehow created a tractor beam of sorts, modulating it so that it froze the target in place instead of pulling or pushing it.

Other capes caught up and I joined the effort when the Blasters began to bombard Leviathan. Over half of them were targeting the base of its tail, often missing it. The beam held Leviathan in place but didn't prevent the Endbringer from turning and performing impressive acrobatics. Then, after thirty-five seconds of intense Blaster fire it shot a spear of water at the cannon.

I saw it coming and threw up forcefields to intercept it, to no avail. The speed and mass of the spear was such that it almost ignored everything I threw between it and the cannon. Second later my bodies on the roof were wiping cannon parts off them and Leviathan was free. Instead of simply pirouetting this time, it performed impressive aerial acrobatics, sending water in all directions.

Another thirty-three capes fell, some of them literally. Legend was reported as a casualty but I could see him flying far above the city. He had momentarily lost his arm, and with it the bracer. Dragon corrected the info on him as soon as possible, but I saw how hearing about Legend had affected the capes.

I also lost both bodies that were fighting Leviathan. This batch of fallen capes was mostly blasters, many of them flyers. Lady Photon, Laserdream, and Purity were local capes. The first two were from New Wave, a family team of capes with no secret identities, and Purity was affiliated with E88, although I knew she had quit them some time ago. From the information in the command center screens I saw that Laserdream was the only confirmed death.

Reservoir was safe, though. The distraction had worked, even if the Endbringer was still active. We had lost it again but I soon detected it. Leviathan was heading back to the construction site, using water to soften the ground and dig before it even arrived.

"Leviathan is back at Lord's street and Fairway. There's something under that construction site it wants."

Several Thinkers nodded at that. "Agreed," said one of them aloud. "We have no clue what, though. It's rare to find out anything about its targets, if it has any."

The battle had gone on for forty-six minutes. If you included the time we had before it started, I had been near dozens of capes for an hour now. My mind exploded.

At least twenty new Thinker powers, dozens of others. It was overwhelming, and it took me nine seconds to get my focus back. Insight was looking at me, her eyes wide as saucers. "You-," she started but I reached out and put my hand over her mouth.

"Not now, Insight," I said to her.

Everything was sharper, deductions came easier, my thoughts were clearer. When I focused on something, the world seemed to slow down to let me analyze it without hurry. I could see what was about to happen, with almost perfect certainty for most capes, and with less so for the Endbringer. The difference seemed to be whether I was able to gain extrasensory information about the future.

I saw that there was a mutated cape in an Endbringer shelter under Leviathan. She was hungry, and her abilities were terrifying. Noelle, or Echidna, if she went on her rampage. I understood the significance of Leviathan's actions.

"I'm going to draw Leviathan away from the construction site. There's a cape under it that's almost as bad as the Endbringer, and it is trying to get to it."

"Take Leviathan to the Trainyard. I'll inform the others," came Dragon's reply.

I interfaced with Dragon on a special communications layer and showed her what I had seen under the construction site. Her reply was almost instantaneous. _I recognize the Travelers, although we have very little information on the Case 53. She might explain the disappearances related to their presence on their way here. The shelter seems to belong to Coil. We do not know his power, if any, but he has dozens of mercenaries working for him._

I thought about the situation for three seconds. _I'll infiltrate the base and see what I can dig up. This fight allowed me to gain many powers, so I'm likely to find out what's going on down there._

It took me fifty-seven seconds to find my way in, and nine minutes and seven seconds to spread out across the base. I left the nanites there to collect information and focused on the Endbringer fight.

My multitasking ability was very useful for things like this. While I was infiltrating the base, I was also fighting Leviathan. I wasn't especially worried about showing my hand any longer, so I brought more offensive abilities to the fight. My lasers were greatly enhanced with the additional beam emitting powers I had gotten, and my forcefields began to actually penetrate into the beast. I managed to place my forcefield in a fullerene-shaped construction surrounding Leviathan, effectively stopping him.

Once he was stationary I focused on another power and made a show of pulling an emitter-like construct seemingly from nowhere. I aimed at Leviathan and pressed the trigger, while the power went to work, creating hard-light manacles pinning the Endbringer down.

We opened fire with a multitude of Blaster powers, all aiming for the base of the tail. At first Leviathan seemed to struggle against the manacles, but as the hole we were carving got closer and closer to the crystal it seemed to lose interest in feigning being truly captured. With a window-shattering boom the beast broke the manacles and headed towards the sea. We could see a glint in the wound we had made but once the Endbringer was moving it was avoiding further damage to that place.

I watched as Leviathan reached the shore and seemed to disappear as it went from being nearly still to supersonic speeds under the water.

Leviathan was gone. We had lost seventy-eight capes, the lowest number since its appearance. The cheers were somewhat strained for many, though, because we had still lost many friends and colleagues. I'd probably mourn later, myself. I had liked Bunter, Battery and Dauntless. Losing Laserdream would cripple the New Wave for a while. The other capes were Nazis, but I still felt bad about them. From all I heard and had read Rune and the twins were relatively nice despite their allegiances.

Next, another couple of weeks of power testing.


End file.
